Masteries and SoS-type Fights
DrZola
Member Posts: 8,926 ★★★★★
What’s the thought process around fight design and the way certain nodes will interact with AAR and in particular AAR masteries?
1) Is there any thought given to it?
2) Is the team as surprised as Summoners are when they get an insta-death Easter egg?
3) Is it all part of the larger plan—to wit, is it meant to dig deep into whether players have read the myriad descriptions and understand the interactions?
4) Is it just something that the team acknowledges but is a bit too complex to factor into fights design?
I ask because the entire perception of AAR masteries has evolved into a quasi-suicide mastery mindset: they are, in fact, often double-edged and may be less mastery than liability in certain situations (which seem to be recurring more often).
Where does the team see this going? How do they approach the existence of these masteries in designing endgame fights?
Insight appreciated.
Dr. Zola
1) Is there any thought given to it?
2) Is the team as surprised as Summoners are when they get an insta-death Easter egg?
3) Is it all part of the larger plan—to wit, is it meant to dig deep into whether players have read the myriad descriptions and understand the interactions?
4) Is it just something that the team acknowledges but is a bit too complex to factor into fights design?
I ask because the entire perception of AAR masteries has evolved into a quasi-suicide mastery mindset: they are, in fact, often double-edged and may be less mastery than liability in certain situations (which seem to be recurring more often).
Where does the team see this going? How do they approach the existence of these masteries in designing endgame fights?
Insight appreciated.
Dr. Zola
20
Comments
Prevent Toad's regen and it will hurt you. Meaning don't use AAR. And that would automatically include AAR masteries.
And for this fight in particular, it just seems like overkill to use a global / mastery-sensitive node like Wounded Animal to prevent someone from using Nimrod, when he doesn’t even fulfill an objective.
Dr. Zola
Kabam has since then taken steps to ensure many such nodes, especially those in act 8 and 9 are always accompanied by 'Adamant Axiom' nodes which prevent those nodes from being turned off. I'm pretty sure there are some nodes in EQ too which are unaffected by AAR. Not all though.
That should answer your first and fourth question. They have put thought into, have acknowledged it and have taken steps to solve the pain points.
Now coming to Toad, as I've said, the node very explicitly tells you not to use AAR. So it shouldn't be a surprise that you get punished for using AAR.
It's not the first time masteries have had to be changed in order to do a fight more comfortably. There have been fights in the past which apply healblock and those using suicides had to undo them. This isn't different .
Missing Assassin interaction can just be a human error.
I'm forcing my perspective on this one. That's true and I know is not acceptable in forums, lol.
But, they have made a lot of effort specifically designing and fixing old top restrictive nodes.
That's why we see the hardest restrictive nodes comes with a combo of another node to help players to bring some counters. This is just an observation.
There are annoying time wasting nodes or super complicated SQ node traps, that I personally don't enjoy, but they are just harder nodes for 3 or 4 fights a path.
In conclusion, I think the designer just missed assassin interaction.
70 units tax was paid to do the objectives.
"Take damage if you prevent a regen except by assassins mastery or pacify"?? That seems very tacky.
But even more importantly, why? Why should the game design accommodate for a mastery you use?
They have introduced many nodes in the past like that, which works outside of assassin.
I don't recall the number of times, players got screwed by assassins. But on the other hand pacify is a usual suspect, messing up the fights.
Pacify is cheap to change too tho.
I know, there have been times in the past, where aar was punished. But a negetive assassin interaction is a rare one to see.
Unlike suicides—which present an explicit trade-off—Assassin and Pacify do not. If forums and chats are any indication, there are more than a few veterans who found themselves wondering why they dropped dead as they were closing out the fight. That’s not because they are poor players—it’s because esoteric game interactions are increasingly a “thing.”
Is it possible this was all intended? Sure, but it’s equally possible the Wounded Animal node interaction with Assassin was just as unforeseen by the game team as were the initial disadvantageous AAR mastery interactions way back when.
But if you’re looking for tacky, Wounded Animal is precisely that—by attempting to exclude a champ like Nimrod, the team cast its net too widely. Perhaps include an anti-robot node and there’s no need to force players to shift masteries out of Assassin…and to what exactly? One of the new masteries promised to be forthcoming?
If the team is going to neuter existing masteries, then give us something worthwhile to put our points into.
Dr. Zola
And there isn't any rule that you wouldn't have to face consequences for your masteries. Especially in an end game fight.
I've had to change masteries for fights depending on the champ I use and whomsoever it is I fight .
Using dexterity has forever been punished by nodes ad nauseum that people used to remove dexterity to do some fights. I've personally taken out dexterity to fight Abyss Dormammu or some AW fights . This isn't new .
Placing an anti-Robot node would remove two great counters. G99 and Viv. That would be an overall negative.
I think the main problem here is that you think masteries should be set in stone and never forced to change(except suicids). Which you can. You may have to pay a price for it is all.
In my opinion, it shouldn't matter at all.masteries are a flexible thing. And as always AAR was always a double edged sword. And it shouldn't be a surprise.
As for the veteran's part. I don't think that once the interaction is pointed out, anyone would have any doubt why it is happening so. But most people usually forget their specific mastery setup and it's interactions. Most use assassins for the damage boost.
Agreed. Watching Brian Grant's face when it happened to him last night sums the whole thing up. He's pretty well versed in Mcoc knowledge & once he realized what had occurred, he was, let's say family friendly frustrated...
I know what happens when I use suicides—it’s quite literally written in the description. If I Dex, I know it creates a precision buff that can be affected by nodes or champs. I know Parry will produce a stun debuff that will be detrimental against certain champs or nodes.
AAR interactions have always been squirrelly. The phrase referring to Regen effects being “removed or prevented from triggering by the Attacker’s abilities” obviously doesn’t call Assassin to mind for many, many players (and probably didn’t for the team either).
If it did, I’m sure I and others far better at this game than I am wouldn’t be having a “what the @*%#” moment in this fight.
Dr. Zola
"Prevent a regen from triggering" is pretty crystal clear in what it means. You should not prevent the triggering of a regen ability. And Aar is something that does the aforementioned action. So assassin will affect it.
I really don't see what the issue is. It's not a tradeoff . It's one singular interaction in one single fight.
Literally in the middle of my special animation when the KO happened and super confused when I"m the one that died with toad at 1%.
Super frustrating..
I wish wounded animal punishes you only for removing regen stacks, not preventing them, so it can handle nimrod but aar champs can still work.
I agree with Desi that "Wounded Animal" is clearly intended to punish AAR champions; and Pacify/Assassin masteries are caught in the crossfire.
But I think the solution should be smaller costs for Mastery resets: who can't you take points out for the same price as putting them in? If it's five units to add a point in Assassin's mastery, it shouldn't cost you seventy units to reset everything if you want to take that point back out again.
And as for masteries, hasn't that already been established as the norm? You make choices and live with it. If you want to change it, it will cost you.
Also nowadays we have mastery layout. I always have one utility layout where I turn off willpower, despair,assasins and pacify.
In anticipation of the counter that “you should just run arena to get units,” I’d say that MCoC requires high enough time consumption that having to play more modes to pay for mastery swaps is silly.
Add to that the fact that masteries have had no new additions for years. Class masteries apart from MD are largely worthless. There are probably a few different mastery permutations among high end players, but I’d guess there isn’t a lot of variation (apart from Suicides on/off). If I have to pay to pull points from one mastery or another, I’d at least like to have an advantageous place to put those points.
“Caught in the crossfire” is a great way to describe this effect. I have little doubt the detrimental AAR mastery interactions were initially an unintended outcome. Continuing to incorporate those detrimental mastery interactions into gameplay without offering some counter-benefit feels like lazy design to me. Requiring unit expenditure to avoid those detrimental interactions is just icing on the cake.
Dr. Zola